FACTORS DETERMINING MUSEUM VISITATION DECISION

AMONG COMMUNITIES IN KEDAH

Nizar Bin Nazrin

Master of Arts 2014

FACTORS DETERMINING MUSEUM VISITATION DECISION AMONG

COMMUNITIES IN KEDAH

NIZAR BIN NAZRIN

A thesis submitted

in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts

UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SARAWAK

Year 2014

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AUTHOR’S DECLARATION

I declare that the work in this thesis was carried out in accordance with the regulations of

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. It is original and is the result of my work, unless otherwise

indicated or acknowledged as referenced work. This thesis has not been submitted at

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak or to any other academic institution or non-academic institution

for any other degree or qualification.

Name of Student : Nizar bin Nazrin

Student ID No : 13020098

Programme Degree : Art Management

Faculty : Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts

Thesis Title : FACTORS DETERMINING MUSEUM VISITATION

DECISION AMONG COMMUNITIES IN KEDAH

Signature of Student :

Date :

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Bismillahhirahmanirrahim

Alhamdulillah

To my family, for their love and support.

A number of people deserve special acknowledgement for their role in the development of this

thesis. Perhaps most important are the invaluable contributions of Dr Noria Tugang as my main

supervisor and also to Profesor Dr. Hashim bin Awang. The guidance, support and

encouragement I received from both have had a unique and significant impact of the initiation

and continued development of many of the ideas presented herein. Not to forget Dr Wan Jamarul

Imran bin Wan Abdullah Thani who had given me all the support as the Deputy Dean of Post

Graduate, FACA from the beginning till the end of the writing. A very special thanks to my most

beloved wife, Farah Merican Isahak Merican who had been my backbone in encouraging and

helping me with the thesis writing since the beginning until the completion and my family

members who had been giving me morale support throughout the process. I would also like to

take the opportunity to thank Mrs Sarah Sabir and Ms Ida Normaya Mohd Nasir for their help in

the SPSS analysis and other fellow comrades in UiTM Kedah who had been guiding me all the

way. And also to those who participated in the questionnaires as without them this research

might have not materialized.

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ABSTRACT

Museum has long served as cultural bridges between past and future. Museums are

reflections of a society as they are repositories of historical, unique, precious and significant

objects and artifacts. As other leisure and learning competition such as art gallery and aquarium

emerge, museums are finding themselves competing competitively to attract numbers of visitors.

Global trends are showing stable or declining numbers of visitations and the types of people who

visit them has remained the same. Museums are said to be focused on programs organized

instead of understanding visitors. When museums failed to understand their visitors, they fail to

attract new and recurrent visitors. This shows how important for museums to understand their

visitors and tailor their program towards making visitors satisfied whenever they visit. At this

juncture, museums need to find out why and what motivates visitors’ visitation to museums. The

problem faced by Kedah Museum management is when the visitor’s amount is not equal to all its

existing museums. The latest museum under their management which is the Muzium Padi

received tremendous amount of visitors compared to other museums and this raised question of

why visitors are keen to visit Muzium Padi which is situated nine kilometer away from city

center and not other museums which located within the city vicinity. This research highlights on

the decision making process which covered three factors influencing visitation decision, namely

psychological influences, situational influences and sociocultural influences. Research was done

on locals in the state of Kedah, Malaysia. Results of this study indicated that psychological

influences are the most significant factor influencing visitation decision. The study confirmed

that the feel of interacting in gaining information and experience excites visitors more than

having majestic exhibition.

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ABSTRAK

Muzium merupakan penghubung budaya antara masa silam dan masa kini. Ruang di

muzium merupakan gambaran ekspresi sesuatu masyarakat yang mengandungi barangan artifak

yang bernilai tinggi dari sudut sejarah dan warisan. Banyak tempat tarikan berunsurkan

pendidikan kini tumbuh bagai cendawan dan ia menjadi satu saingan yang hebat kepada

kewujudan muzium. Statistik pengunjung muzium secara global menunjukkan pada paras

menurun dan pengunjung kekal pada kategori pengunjung yang sama. Dikatakan juga muzium

hanya memfokuskan kepada program bersifat muzium itu sendiri disebalik memahami keinginan

pengunjung itu sendiri. Apabila pihak muzium gagal untuk memahami keinginan pengunjung itu

sendiri secara tidak langsung muzium gagal untuk menarik minat pengunjung baru ke muzium

mereka. Ini membuktikan betapa pentingnya untuk pihak muzium memahami keinginan

pengunjung untuk memastikan mereka mencapai tahap kepuasan yang tinggi setelah melawat.

Pada titik ini, adalah perlu untuk pihak muzium mengenal pasti apakah faktor-faktor yang

mempengaruhi keputusan mengunjung para pengunjung. Masalah yang dihadapi oleh pihak

pengurusan Muzium Kedah adalah apabila jumlah pengunjung kesemua muzium yang ada tidak

sekata. Muzium terbaru dibawah pengurusan mereka, Muzium Padi menerima jumlah

pengunjung yang tinggi berbanding muzium-muzium yang lain dan ini menimbulkan persoalan

mengapa pengunjung lebih gemar ke Muzium Padi yang terletak sembilan kilometer dari Pusat

Bandar berbanding muzium-muzium lain yang terletak didalam pusat Bandar itu sendiri. Kajian

ini menekankan kepada proses membuat keputusan yang merangkumi tiga faktor pengaruh iaitu

pengaruh psikologi, pengaruh situasi dan pengaruh sosiobudaya. Kajian ini diadakan pada

penduduk tempatan negeri Kedah. Keputusan daripada kajian ini mendapati, pengaruh psikologi

merupakan faktor utama yang mempengaruhi keputusan untuk mengunjung. Kajian ini

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mengesahkan bahawa keinginan untuk mendapatkan ilmu itu lebih menyeronokan daripada

hanya melihat pameran yang hanya gah dimata.

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Table of Contents

Author’s Declaration i

Acknowledgement ii

Abstract iii

Abstrak iv

Table of contents vi

List of Tables x

List of figures ix

Chapter One INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Research Background 3

1.3 Problem Statements 4

1.4 Research Questions 8

1.5 Research Objectives 8

1.6 Scope

1.6.1 Location 9

1.6.2 Demography 9

1.7 Research Significance 10

1.8 Research Rational 10

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1.9 Limitation 11

1.10 Conceptual Framework 12

a) Decision Making 13

b) Situational Factors 14

c) Psychological Factors 14

d) Sociocultural Factors 16

1.11 Summary 18

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW

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2.1 Introduction 19

2.2 Tourism 19

2.3 Tourist 22

2.4 Economic Aspects of Museum 24

2.5 The Establishment of Museums 27

2.6 Roles of Museums 29

2.7 Museums in Malaysia 34

2.8 Museums in Kedah 37

2.9 Visitors Expectation of a Museum 39

2.10 Decision Making Theory 44

2.11 Psychological Influences 46

2.12 Situational Influences 62

2.13 Sociocultural Influences 78

2.14 Summary 83

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Chapter Three RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3 Introduction 84

3.1 Research Design 84

3.2 Population / Sample 85

3.3 Unit of Analysis 86

3.4 Measures 86

3.5 Variables 87

3.6 Data Analyses 88

3.7 Pilot Test 91

3.8 Summary 91

Chapter Four RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

4 Introduction 92

4.1 Profile of Respondents 92

4.2 Museum Visited 94

4.3 Reliability Analysis 95

4.4 Descriptive Analysis 97

4.5 Correlation Analysis 98

4.6 Regression Analysis 99

4.7 Summary 101

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Chapter Five DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

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5.1 Introduction 102

5.2 Recapitulation of the Study 102

5.3 Discussion of the findings

5.3.1 Reasons behind a visitor’s visit to museums in Kedah 103

5.3.2 The factors that influence visitor’s visitation decision process

a) Relationship between psychological influences with visitor’s visitation

decision process 107

b) Relationship between situational influences with visitor visitation decision

process 109

c) Relationship between sociocultural influences with visitor’s visitation decision

process 112

d) The importance of all three influences as perceived by visitors in making their

visitation decisions 114

5.4 Implication of study 114

5.5 Limitation of study 115

5.6 Recommendation and conclusion 116

REFERENCES 123

APPENDIXES 150

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List of Tables

1. Table 4.1 Demographic Profile of Respondents 93

2. Table 4.2 Museum Visited 94

3. Table 4.3 Reason of Visit according to museum visited 95

4. Table 4.4 Reliability coefficients for the Major Variables 97

5. Table 4.5 Descriptive Analysis 98

6. Table 4.6 Pearson Correlation results 99

7. Table 4.7 Regression Analysis 101

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List of Figures

1. Figure 1.1 Conceptual Framework 12

2. Figure 2.1 Statistic of visitors to Kedah Museums, 2013 60

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Introduction

Tourism industry in Malaysia has grown by leaps and bounce. Recognized as a major

source of revenue to Malaysian economic reawakening, Malaysia saw how tourism sector has

attracted great number of tourist between both international tourist as well as Malaysian domestic

travelers. Having a great strength in tourism product diversity, Malaysia has established a distinct

image in the international tourism arena. Heritage and culture are among the niche products for

Malaysia’s tourism development. Cultural tourism is a branch under tourism that promotes

heritage sites, cultural centers and museums that represents a country. It represents local’s

lifestyle, history, religion, economy, education and other elements that shape the local’s life. This

new branch of tourism includes tourism in urban areas, especially historical cities and cultural

facilities like museums and theatres and also tourism in rural areas such as traditional of

indigenous cultural communities and their way of life (Rotich, 2012). Cultural tourism is

significant as it celebrates, preserve and promote a state’s unique heritage, and boost economic

development. Despite varied cultural tourism resources like performing arts and

archaeological/historical sites, it was evident that these attractions have not found enough

attention (Mohamed et al, 2005). Cultural institutions like museums should be capitalized to

generate development of cultural tourism. As one of the main attraction of cultural tourism,

museums contribute to the development of tourism as they work with cultural and heritage assets.

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Museums’ inputs to the development in the field of cultural tourism are certainly significant and

valid.

Museum has long served as cultural bridges between past, present and future. Museums

are reflections of a society as they are repositories of historical, unique, precious and significant

objects and artifacts. Museums are symbol of community pride. Most destinations’ cultures can

be found in museums. Museums become an important part of a destination and in some cases

museums are the destinations. Museums, particularly local museums play significant role in

preserving, gathering, displaying and interpreting knowledge of artifacts that have historical

values for the purpose of public view and learning process. Museums display objects of aesthetic

to our sensory as well as to educate us visually, socially and historically. Although known as

repositories of knowledge and objects, museums should now shift in taking the role as hosts who

invite visitors inside to explore, encounter and learn. Museums need to be more audience-

oriented to pull more visitors. In fact, since 1990s museums have changed their practices and

policies to become more audience-oriented, behaving more business-like compare to the

traditional museums where museums reached only small narrow and self-selected audiences

(Mclean, 1997).

As other leisure and learning competition such as art gallery and aquarium emerge,

museums are finding themselves competing competitively to attract numbers of visitors.

Museums have the obligation to society in terms of preservation as well as to educate and

entertain. Museums must reach out to larger audiences and proactively design arrangements,

services and offerings that will able to generate visitors’ satisfactions and positive outcomes.

Global trends are showing stable or declining numbers of visitations and the types of people who

visit them has remained the same. From our daily environmental scanning to quantitative

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research by global researchers on museum visitation, we can see that museum visiting is not

evenly spread in our population and some museums have lost its attractiveness.

At this juncture, museums need to find out why and what motivates visitors’ decision

making process to visit museums. As museums values changed with time, when museums are

able to figure out all the reasons, it will have a great impact on the management as well as the

service in which museums will be able to provide in the future. Addressing the above challenge

will enable us to understand and suggest ways to make museums more attractive to visitor.

Museums can be reposition once we have assessed the factors behind a museum visit.

1.2. Research background

Museums in Malaysia were established as early as the 19th century. Started by the British,

Malaysia’s first museum was opened in Taiping, Perak followed by a museum in Selangor

(Hassan, 2005). Today, there are more than 100 museums built to keep and display collections on

Malaysia cultural heritage consist of collection from diverse ethnicity of Malaysia, natural history

and ethnography. The main objective of museums in Malaysia is to preserve the national identity

and heritage, and to educate the community about it (Muzium Negara, 2014). These museums are

either managed by the Federal or the State governments.

There are many museums situated in every states in Malaysia that showcase their own

local culture and heritage. Kedah Museums have spent their entire effort in preserving the

valuable cultural heritage of Kedah. Museums in Kedah have been positioned to respond to social

pressures and to the needs of the society. These state museums not only preserves heritage but

hold responsibility to inform and entertain. These museums are working under pressure from the

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society in terms of representing them and they have to respond appropriately to be effective to the

needs of plural society. Museum managements are pressured by lobbying groups for broad and

full coverage of multicultural society histories (Hassan, 2005).

Clearly the rapid changes in time have forced museums to develop sophisticated

techniques that can generate attractive exhibition to motivate visitor’s visitation. When all

lifestyle and life attitude are changing, the philosophy and objectives of museum follows to

change. To date however, these museums have found that general public is less keen on paying

attention or getting interested towards museum’s exhibition.

Why the numbers of visitation has failed to improve or why the numbers start to decline?

Literature reviews have identified several factors that determine a visitor’s decision making to

visit museums. These factors include several psychological, situational and socio-cultural factors.

It is important to researchers to focus their attention on visitor visitation decision process and it

helps them to understand the factors that influences visitor of museums.

1.3. Problem Statements

In a book written by Hope & Hope (1997),’ Competing in the Third Wave’, there were three

separate waves that changed the society today, first were the agriculture wave from 1750 – 1850,

second wave the industrial wave 1850-1960 and the latest are the information wave 1960 – 2000.

Societies today are keen towards quick information instead of requiring traveling and spending

time acquiring one. Since the development of digital camera and internet, photographs can be

snapped and uploaded instantly for the world to view (Moenius, 2013). People can simply view

the situation of a place thousand miles away with a single click. Museums and libraries are

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becoming obsolete due to this technology advancement. Most researches in the world had proved

that museums are actually the economic regenerator where it helps to boost local economy

through the visitors visit. (Smith, 1994). This proved that no matter how advance the technology

surrounding the society, physical display such as museum are still needed in order to fill the

content of the technology.

Undeniably, museums are important resource of tourism industry. Many tourism strategy

plans had considered museums as the core element in the urban attraction and a crucial element

in generating a good urban environment (Verbeke and Rekom, 1996). Museums act as social

organizations that are involved in education, the economy, the community and family life. In

most countries museums these days have taken on a more active role in justifying their existence

compare to the past were museums were often well kept secrets and visited only by a minority of

people.

Despite the above mentioned effort, almost every museum in the world face problems in

attracting visitors. According to Farrell and Medvedeva (2010), barriers to visitations and

participation in museums are due to historically-grounded cultural barriers such as it’s not a norm

for certain community to visit museum and there were perception that only the elites visit such

places (European Commision, 2006). On top of that, several other reasons why people are not

visiting museums include no strong tradition of museum-going habits, lack of specialized

knowledge and cultivated aesthetic taste to understand and appreciate what are perceived by

many as elite art forms, the perception that museums are intimidating and exclusionary and no

social network encouragement.

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In Malaysia, the state of Kedah alone has six museums made available for tourists and

locals visit. Out of these 6 mentioned museums, only one museum which is Muzium Padi has

recorded an impressive number of visitations. (Muzium Kedah, 2013). Based on feedback given

by Museums of Kedah Management, efforts made by them to attract museum visitors seemed

inadequate. Ringgits spent on attractive marketing promotions and events were not able to change

local perspective of Kedah museums. Locals do not view museums as an appealing attraction to

visit. Based on that fact as well as on observation, it is fair to say that museums in Kedah are

unable to attract visitors because they failed to understand reasons behind decision making of

museum visitation.

In addition to that, personal observation and word-of-mouth has highlighted that museum

management failed to understand factors that influences visitation decisions hence the insufficient

development of attractive promotional strategies. Kotler & Kotler (1998) mentioned that by the

early 20th century, museums have shifted its objective towards educational purposes. In modern

time, museums have understood the function and evolved better in providing better and more

memorable experiences. Visitors now expect more than just a normal display in a glass, they

expect to get involve actively in the exhibitions, to learn informally and at the same time get

entertained (Caulton 1998). Due to lack of attractive events, with dull display, gloomy ambience

has made visitors dispassionate in visiting any museum at all. Kedah Museum was unable to

recognize these mentioned factors that influences visitor’s visitation decision process.

The imbalance visitor’s amount visiting Kedah’s museums need to be address seriously as

these problems could not be explain by the management. According to Senior Assistant Curator

at Kedah Museum, Mr Zulkhiberi bin Mat (Mat, Zulkhiberi, personal communication, June 12,

2013), efforts had been made to promote all museums equally but the flow of visitors still heavy

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towards Muzium Padi covering more than fifty percent of total visitors comparing to other

museums (refer to appendix G). This had left the museum management puzzled as the location of

Muzium Padi is out of town and it is nine kilometers away from the main museum (Muzium

Negeri Kedah) where else all the other museums such as Balai Senilukis Negeri Kedah, Muzium

Diraja Kedah and Memorial Tunku Abdul Rahman are located less than two kilometers away

from the main museum.

With reference to the above mentioned problem, undeniably there is a link between

psychological, situational and socio-cultural influences with visitor’s visitation decision making.

And it is important for Museums in Kedah to identify whether all the three influences perceived

as equally important by visitors in making their visitation decisions.

It was claimed that if these influences are present during the museum visitation decision

process, visitor will have the tendency to visit museums more. Therefore, this research will try to

uncover the visitation decision factors and correlate with the influences. This research hopes to

give museums in the state of Kedah the opportunity to understand the dimensions of influences to

ensure better numbers of museum visitations thus making them understand better on the visitor’s

demands and needs.

The unsteady visitors’ amount visiting Kedah’s museums had raised inquiries from State

Tourism Exco, Mr Aminuddin Omar (Omar, Aminuddin, personal communication, August 14,

2013). He questioned on the issue of why Muzium Padi received big amount of visitors but other

museums received only small portion of the total visitors (refer to appendix G). This big question

left a gap to the problem and there’s a need to identify and understand the visitor’s demands and

needs. Before answering to this question, research need to be done to recognize what influence

the visitors for visiting. It is significant for all to see the relationship between psychological,

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situational and socio-cultural influences with visitor’s visitation decision and in future to plan and

strategize better in segregating the visitors equally to all museums in Kedah.

1.4. Research Questions

This research explores visitor visitation decision and what influence the decision. It is to

determine whether it correlates with each other. As the museums strive to maintain their

reputation and establish its name in the industry, identifying ‘what effecting visitor visitation

decision and what influence them is critical. This leads to the following main research questions.

1. What are the reasons behind a museum visitation?

2. What are the factors that influence visitor visitation decision process?

3. Are all the three influences perceived as equally important by visitors in making

their visitation decisions?

1.5. Research Objectives

From the literature review, there are almost no researches done on in identifying the visitation

decision of the museum’s visitors in Malaysia. As a result, this research is carried out with the

main objectives of understanding the relation between museum and the visitors. This research

specifically aims;

1. To identify reasons behind a museum visitation.

2. To investigate the factors that influence visitor’s visitation decision process.

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3. To determine whether all three influences perceived as equally important by

visitors in making their visitation decisions.

1.6. Scope of Study

This study will be focused on museum and narrowed down to visitor’s visitation decision.

1.6.1. Location

Location where this research was done was around Museums in Kedah (managed

by Kedah State) approximately within five to nine kilometer radius in Alor Setar,

Kedah and also other main district like Sungai Petani, Kedah. Empirical studies

such as museum visits and interviews with curators and museum’s staffs in

understanding how neighboring state museums handling the same issue were also

done with Penang State Museums, Terengganu State Museums, Pahang State

Museums, Selangor State Museums, Melaka State Museums and also Sarawak

State Museums. Furthermore International’s Museums community were visited and

interviewed to get a different perspective like museums in Istanbul, Turkey,

museums in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, museums in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam and

museums in Vientiane, Laos.

1.6.2. Demography

Respondents of this research were from Kedah state’s community which comprises

students from age 18 and above, government servants and private sector workers to

differentiate income background. Marital status of respondents was also identified

to understand the family influence.

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1.7. Research Significance

This research has not been done by any researcher and it can help museum management to

improve attractiveness and profitability of museums as well as contributing to the well-being of

surrounding economy. Kedah museums will become part of tourist itinerary thus helping the

museum with its objective to deliver knowledge or information to the society. Through this flow

of tourists, it will benefit the local businesses. Impact of a well-managed museum will also

flourish local community in terms of social development through the understanding of their

background culture and heritage.

The research will also help to make individual visitors aware that their visitation decision

could be influenced by psychological, situational and sociocultural factors. It will serves as a tool

for other researchers to understand more on the visitation decision that will help their research on

developing marketing strategies for other area.

1.8. Research Rational

Maintaining a museums do involve overhead cost that rises every year depending on

materials costing (cost of renovation and setup), human resource (salary), preservation,

articulation and up to exhibition of artifacts. Most public museums did not make profit directly

due to free entry, but did contribute in local economic through tourism. Non-profitable

government agencies or bodies who maintain the museums are vulnerable of being shut down

like what had occured in United Kingdom, where Members of Parliament debated on the rising

cost of maintaining museums and whether they should or not shut down the entire museums in

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United Kingdom. This research will investigate the reasons behind a visitor’s museum visit,

obstacles that stop visitors from visiting museums. By exploring why community least visit state

run museums, we will be able to provide suitable solutions and suggestions to state museums so

that they can remain relevant for more centuries to come and perhaps become a tourism magnet

that will benefit Kedah State as a whole.

1.9. Limitation

In order to control the result outcome from straying away from its main objective, few limitations

have been set.

1. This research is limited to community 10 kilometer radius within Kedah Museums

and Sungai Petani town only with 300 respondents thus might not represent the

majority of the community intended.

2. This research is limited to understand the reasons and causal that influence

visitor’s visitation decision aspect of the Museum thus might not represent the

actual reason of problem occurred.